Translation from English

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Another great plaque from the Library Way in Midtown...very mild New Year's Eve, by the way, saw young men playing basketball in St. Vartan's Park in summer sportswear...

Note on Williams from internet from Poets' Blog site:

William Carlos Williams

In 1883, William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began writing poetry while a student at Horace Mann High School, at which time he made the decision to become both a writer and a doctor. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended Ezra Pound.
Pound became a great influence on his writing, and in 1913 arranged for the London publication of Williams's second collection, The Tempers. Returning to Rutherford, where he sustained his medical practice throughout his life, Williams began publishing in small magazines and embarked on a prolific career as a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright.
Following Pound, he was one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement, though as time went on, he began to increasingly disagree with the values put forth in the work of Pound and especially Eliot, who he felt were too attached to European culture and traditions. Continuing to experiment with new techniques of meter and lineation, Williams sought to invent an entirely fresh—and singularly American—poetic, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.
His influence as a poet spread slowly during the twenties and thirties, overshadowed, he felt, by the immense popularity of Eliot's "The Waste Land"; however, his work received increasing attention in the 1950s and 1960s as younger poets, including Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, were impressed by the accessibility of his language and his openness as a mentor. His major works include Kora in Hell (1920), Spring and All (1923), Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962), the five-volume epic Paterson (1963, 1992), and Imaginations (1970).
Williams's health began to decline after a heart attack in 1948 and a series of strokes, but he continued writing up until his death in New Jersey in 1963.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Wondered how I had missed this place all the times I have walked this block on East 30th Street....it may be a relatively new place.

Based on the ideas of Social Thinker Henry George...it offers courses and seminars, (most of them free it seems if not all of them)-- to "Explain basic economic and social science principles."

Here is a lift from their website about upcoming free forums

Friday Evening Forums

All forums are free and open to the public, and begin at 6:30 pm.

Empty Apartment Buildings in NYC

January 13th, with Mr. Billy Fitzgerald
New Yorkers see them all the time: new apartment buildings, the entrance locked, without a single resident. Why are these buildings empty while apartment rents increase? Join us as we investigate ways to make housing affordable for all.

The Economy on Trial

January 20th, with Dr. Nibaldo Aguilera
The economic elite are indicted as American workers and studnets confront corporate greed and irresponsible governments. Why confront Wall Street? What public spaces should be "occupied"? What is the way forward?

Poverty and Urban Blight

January 27th, with Mr. Joshua Vincent
Overviews from some of America's poorest cities will pinpoint patterns of land ownership as factors in disinvestment and capital flight, Demographic and locational data are synthesized to illustrate where reforms are needed.

Land Value Taxation in the U.S.

February 3rd, with Mr. Andrew Mazzone
Could communities in the United States pay for public services and infrastructure with user fees on natural resources? This simulation of Georgist methods will reveal the value of monopolies of land and other natural opportunities.

Economics of Health Care

February 10th, with Dr. Demetrios Karides
Of the developed countries, the United States spends the highest amount per person on health care, yet has millions of people without medical insurance. Where does this money go? What is the relationship between high cost and high-quality patient care? Dr. Karides will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the American system and suggest ways to get better care at lower cost.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Something about this SPC Doorway strikes me as so spooky...let me see if I can find out if there is any clue what SPC is on internet...

No, all it wants to give me for SPC is St. Paul's Chapel and that certainly isn't it.

WAIT, someone has just informed me that is a security company...that makes sense, it has the eerie watchful look of that ( once did some work for a security agency whose logo was a large eye-- reminded me both of the old CBS eye and also of Orwell's "1984") ( By the way, son of founder of the company, who was a college graduate, had no idea of what I was talking about when I told him of the Orwell idea-- he had never heard of "1984" ( this happened about 1986, as I remember).... as I was to find out later, and evidenced all the time by such humorous bits as Jay Leno's "Jaywalking," there are all sorts of "educated" people in our society now who are clueless about all sorts of cultural references everyone who was educated used to take for granted-- in fact, many of them do not know the simplest facts about, say, American history ( Michele Bachmann being a glaring example).

Sunday, December 25, 2011

City bus lines in some cases have done changeover to new system which is a pain..called "Select Service'"--have to buy pass at machine at bus stop with Metrocard. Bug fine if they catch you boarding without the pass!

I don't think this is an improvement on the old bus service at all..

Let us see if there is something on the internet

Most people seem on the whole to approve of the service but one review notes some drawbacks:

Bus bunching proved to be the biggest complaint, causing waits of up to 20 minutes at times and waits of less than one minute at others.
Many times it was local M15 buses blocking the way for the faster SBS. Still, with fewer stops and a (mostly) respected dedicated lane, it was a faster bus trip up and down the east side than I’ve had before. Half an hour each—less time than it took me to write this, which I started at about 50th street on my cell phone next to confused passengers still wondering what to do with the paper receipt they were told to keep as proof of sidewalk payment. One person suggested there be recycling bins for the new paper waste.

Friday, December 23, 2011

A lot of money changes hands over on 34th Street near 7th Avenue, and security for it is of course fairly tight...haven't seen the latest crime stats yet about robberies etc. in Midtown...suspect there are more of them now with bad economy.

Little Picasso Children's Art Studio is only storefront place I have ever seen in Manhattan teaching art to small children...

Let us see what is on internet

They will get messy, they will have fun, they will create, and they will experiment...with different colors, photos, crafts, shapes, dough, texture, animals, cut and past, sculpting, drawing, sketching, and much more! Our Art Classes are designed to help your little artists discover the inner picasso in them while allowing their own unique personality to flourish and thrive.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Fancy purses with elaborate Menorah in shop window on 2nd Avenue in the Upper 50's...This whole area is given over to specialty and design shops....places where they sell Italian Wood Floors, an outfit called Euroconcept and a special street sign at 58th and 2nd that says "Designers' Way."

Saturday, December 17, 2011

My usual path of traveling during the week takes me past this woman's shop every week... I was surprised to hear the a BBC show which does a New York segment interview a young British woman who was working at the store. She made it sound pleasant enough...

There are enough people from the UK in New York now for there to be an area called "Little Britain" down in Greenwich Village which has shops which feature truly authentic Brit fish and chips etc. ( they are choosey about the kinds of potatoes and oils and seasonings they use, for instance).

Let us see if there is anything on the internet more about Laila Rowe:

Well, found some reviews, only one of which was really favorable. I guess from what limited knowledge I have from the internet now, I don't know if I could recommend the place. If anyone reads this who has knowledge of the store, please leave a comment...

Related Articles

Around 80 per cent of the world's reserves are in the American South-west.
However, because the gas is sold so cheaply there is no incentive to recycle it. Nasa uses enormous quantities to clean its rockets to get rid of explosive fuel but none of the gas is reused.
Prof Richardson, professor of Physics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, co-chaired an inquiry into the impending shortage convened by the US National Research Council, an arm of the US National Academy of Sciences.
He claims that helium should rise by between 20- and 50-fold to make recycling more worthwhile.
Professor Richardson also believes that party balloons filled with helium are too cheap, and they should really cost about £64 to reflect the precious nature of the gas they contain.
He told The Independent: "Once helium is released into the atmosphere in the form of party balloons or boiling helium, it is lost to the Earth for ever, lost to the Earth for ever."

Building: The Residences at 400 Fifth Avenue at 400 Fifth Avenue in Midtown South

60 floor building with a total gross area of approximately 570,000 square feet. The new building contains a five star hotel, with 214 hotel rooms, including 157 guestrooms and 57 hotel/suite apartments, a gracious lobby, restaurant, bar, spa, health club, and other amenities. Topping the tower will be 190 luxurious Midtown Manhattan residential condominiums. The project is scheduled to be completed in fall 2010.
A curving façade segment, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 36th Street, continues the rhythm of the windows while acknowledging the continuity of the “front” façade, which extends from the residential entrance on 36th Street to the hotel entrance on Fifth Avenue. Limestone cladding at the podium relates the new building’s materials to the rich and varied palette of stone cladding characteristic of the adjacent historic structures.
In addition to relating to the landmarked Tiffany & Company building, consideration has been given to the formal relationship to the adjoining 404 Fifth Avenue building, which is also a recently designated landmark structure.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Manhattan is known for having more and less expensive shops coexist in some areas....these three are a great case in point: Lord &Taylor not far from much less expensive dress shop. which is just around the corner from jewelry store having fire sale.

Used to be you could be fairly sure of the quality of what you were buying according to where you bought it, but these days it seems everything in made in China or Swaziland or Mexico...and may be a really cheap illegal knock off ( doubt Lord & Taylor would sell those, though).

About Me

New Trier High School, Winnetka Illinois.... cancer survivor...NYU Grad School of Film and TV...Film Editor....Training Audio/Visual Writer for US Coast Guard...audio visual producer and public relations writer..had some pretty awful bumps along the way (haven't we all) --glad to still be around and in touch with so many friends from the past